If you feel depressed because of your failures in life, and find your life very tough going, this is indeed the best piece for you. There are ample number of stories that might inspire you and induce a positive thrust within you. However story of this Chinese Tycoon, Jack Ma, his failures and how brilliantly he overcame them with a strong heart and a smiling face will astonish you.
1. Failed in exams in the school, even in Primary and Middle School
When it comes to academics, Jack Ma was not a very brilliant student in his childhood days. He could not get into middle school easily.
“I failed a key primary school test 2 times, I failed the middle school test 3 times, I failed the college entrance exam 2 times…” One can clearly imagine the tough time he faced from the beginning and his sheer determination and self-motivation which has got him to this position in the world.
Jack Ma has rightly quoted, “If you don’t give up, you still have a chance. Giving up is the greatest failure.” All he did was kept on struggling with a smiling face till success touched his feet.
2. He applied for Harvard 10 times. Turned down every time.
Jack Ma is the paradigm of persistence and determination. The most important thing worth appreciating was even after continuous rejection, the man did not stop applying in the Harvard University. It sounds surprising to almost everyone, yet he did it without any sort of botheration.
And we cannot agree any less to Jack Ma’s saying, “The world will not remember what you say, but it will certainly not forget what you have done.”
3. Scored 1 out of 120 marks in Mathematics portion in college exams.
Scoring less than 1 percent of the total is powerful enough to demotivate and shatter anyone. However, this did not affect Jack Ma in the slightest possible way. Even until today, he struggles with Mathematics, in spite of founding a tech-savvy company, Alibaba. Jack Ma openly says, “I am not good at math, have never studied management, and still cannot read accounting reports.”
Jack Ma shares, “I am not a Tech Guy. I am looking at the technology with the eyes of my customers, normal people’s eyes.”
4. Rejected by nearly 30 companies after graduation
After his graduation, he applied for 30 jobs and was eventually turned down for each one of them. He even applied for the post of a police officer. Jack Ma was one out of the 5 applicants who was rejected, and he was simply rejected with a reason of not being so good.
Even after being rejected, Jack Ma took it sportingly giving a strong message to the world, “It doesn’t matter if I failed. At least I passed the concept on to others. Even if I don’t succeed, someone will succeed.”
5. One interviewee out of 24, who was rejected by KFC was Jack Ma
Jack Ma has riddled with failure literally. Being the only person rejected by KFC among the shortlisted ones is depressing and disappointing as well. People who have had similar situations in life can understand the strength and courage it takes to rise from that situation.
Yet again a beautiful saying by Jack Ma, “Never Give Up. Today is Hard, Tomorrow will be worse, but the day after tomorrow will be sunshine” will make you wonder the charisma and optimism behind this amazing personality.
6. Could not manage to get funding for Alibaba from Silicon Valley
Jack Ma says, “Once in your life, try something. Work hard at something. Try to change. Nothing bad can happen.”
After starting Alibaba, Jack Ma went to Silicon Valley to get Venture Capital funding for his company, but got rejected for running a business model that is unprofitable. With Alibaba being one among the largest E-commerce giants in the world and Jack Ma, its founder with a net worth of $28.4 billion USD, the current status reveals the worth.
Alibaba was not yielding profits for the first three years. There were times when he tried to pay his bills, the restaurant owner would say, “your bill was paid”, and he found a note saying, “Mr. Jack Ma, I am your customer on the Alibaba platform. I made a lot of money, and I know you don’t, so I paid the bill.” Jack Ma did not care about revenues.
Also Read: Differences between The Silicon Valley and the Indian Silicon Valley
7. Jack Ma told 18 Alibaba partners that none of them could be executives
Jack Ma accepts it as one of the biggest mistake he made in Alibaba, “The lessons I learned from the dark days at Alibaba are that you’ve got to make your team have value, innovation, and vision.”
Jack Ma wished to hire managers from outside. He told his 18 partners that none of them can rise higher than the rank of a manager, and the executives will be hired from outside. He learned a lesson for doing so and stresses on the importance of attitude, perseverance and passion over theoretical knowledge.
Truly, an inspiration! What do you think?
Rashika Daga
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